Posted on 12/01/2016 4:47:37 PM PST by jazusamo
Requiring employees in the United States to speak a foreign language is not discriminatory but forcing them to speak English violates federal law under a sweeping order issued by the Obama administration to crack down on “national origin discrimination” in the workplace. The government’s new enforcement guidelines state that bilingual requirements don’t meet discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act but English-only rules do because they’re restrictive language policies.
The administration asserts that the new rules, which cover a broad range of scenarios that could get employers in trouble, were created because the American workforce is “increasingly ethnically diverse.” The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws, made them public a few days ago. “The increased cultural diversity of today’s workplaces presents new and evolving issues with respect to Title VII’s protection against national origin discrimination,” the agency writes in the lengthy document. “This enforcement guidance will assist EEOC staff in their investigation of national origin discrimination charges and provide information for applicants, employees, and employers to understand their respective rights and responsibilities under Title VII.”
Two years ago, the administration laid the foundation for the new measures by suing a private American business for discriminating against Hispanic and Asian employees because they didn’t speak English on the job. The case involved a Green Bay Wisconsin metal and plastic manufacturer that fired a group of Hmong and Hispanic workers over their English skills. Forcing employees to speak English in the U.S. violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the EEOC claimed in its lawsuit. That’s because the Civil Rights Act protects employees from discrimination based on national origin, which includes the linguistic characteristics of a national origin group. Therefore, the EEOC argued, foreigners have the right to speak their native language even during work hours at an American company that requires English.
Now the agency has created official federal rules to support this absurd theory as well as other innovative discrimination categories, including “multiple protected bases.” This is a seldom recognized but potent Molotov cocktail of prejudice based on race, color and religion. As an example, the new rules mention discrimination against Middle Easterners perceived to “follow particular religious practices.” Among the amusing hypotheticals embedded in the rules is an Egyptian named Thomas who alleges he was harassed by his coworkers about his Arab ethnicity and Islam. “Thomas’ charge should assert national origin, race and religious discrimination,” the EEOC writes, referring to its new “multiple protected bases” category. The agency reassures that it will protect Middle Easterners, stating that “Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on the perception that someone is from the Middle East or is of Arab ethnicity, regardless of how she identifies herself or whether she is, in fact, from one or more Middle Eastern countries or ethnically Arab.”
Employers that use Social Security requirements to screen applicants are warned that they may be charged with discrimination because it disproportionately eliminates individuals of a certain national origin and has a disparate impact based on national origin. That makes Social Security screens “unlawful under Title VII unless the employer establishes that the policy or practice is job related and consistent with business necessity,” the EEOC rules say. Here’s another good one involving prejudice in hiring: “Reliance on word-of-mouth recruiting may magnify existing ethnic, racial or religious homogeneity in a workplace and result in the exclusion of qualified applicants from different national origin groups,” the EEOC rules state. That would constitute a violation of federal law, the EEOC points out, because the employer’s actions have a discriminating effect based on national origin.
Under Obama the EEOC has strong-armed private businesses and government agencies into adopting the administration’s leftist agenda and inflated standards of political correctness. Last fiscal year the agency celebrated getting a record $525 million in settlements for reported victims of discrimination in both private and public sector jobs. One of the EEOC’s biggest cases involved a national clothing retailer that specializes in hip casual wear for youngsters and refused to change a rule banning head covers for employees. The agency sued the company for religious discrimination because it wouldn’t allow a Muslim woman to wear a hijab to work. In another victory, a national retailer was forced to pay $2.5 million to black job candidates that had been screened with criminal background checks. The EEOC asserts background checks have a disparate impact on African Americans and the administration has bullied companies into eliminating them.
“Natural origin discrimination”... a Federal offense.
Insanity!
But creatively so.
I expect we’ll have to put up with this for less than another 60 days.
Just another thing to be reversed once Trump gets in office.
Just eliminating all the stupid rules promulgated by the Just Us Dept. is going to take weeks.
Executive order repeal, ok ...fixed it.
Trump can overturn that in less than 50 days.
I’m just saying . . .
People have the natural right to freedom of association. Whether or not being racist makes someone an a-hole is a different question than whether free individuals have an inherent right to be a-holes if that is their choice.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 needs to be revisited, because it grossly overstepped the boundaries of government power by prohibiting individual action.
Laws against racism and discrimination should be exclusively about limiting government power to discriminate and/and or force segregation with regard to the government policies, law enforcement, government institutions and facilities. The injustices of the Jim Crow era were legally enforced by the government, and the Jim Crow era laws needed to be eliminated.
But free individuals have a right to choose with whom they will or will not associate. If society wants to impose sanctions on racist a-holes, that’s fine, as long as it’s done socially (i.e. boycotts and shunning) and not legally.
Much of the government over reach we have seen in the past 50 years is due to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 being commandeered by the left to limit the rights of the people relating to pretty much all private activity, instead of being limited to curtailing the powers of the government.
If black people want to live exclusively with black people at private colleges, that is their right if the college chooses to adopt that policy. But that same right also must be recognized for all other races and ethnic groups as well.
And hopefully get some relief for school districts expected to bend over to accommodate 80-some languages or dialects. I can’t even begin to imagine how much that harms and steals assets from American, English-speaking kids.
“With Barky the inmates have been running the asylum; praying that President Trump will restore sanity.”
He will. It’s A New Day in America. And THIS time, it’s going to STICK! :)
Not EOs, if I read the article correctly, but regulations from the EEOC.
I wonder if they went through the “notice and comment procedure” that is specified under the APA (Administrative Procedures Act), or were constructed out of whole cloth as “guidance.”
They aren’t EOs, although clearly driven from the top. Technically, the repeal process might be more involved. What Trump needs to do is a major purge of the leftist infection of our government. I don’t know if he can pull it off. What stopped GWB from reversing some of the rot injected by the Clintons? Sloth? Or did he somewhat approve? Or is it very difficult?
Bump! ;-)
How about mandating Pig-Latin?
I was working at one of my accounts, and a lady asked me something in spanish. I calmly stated, in English, that I don’t speak spanish. She walked away.
I believe you’re correct.
It may not be easy but President Trump with a Republican Congress should be able to work together and overcome these ridiculous rules.
What we must have is a National Language Law for the purposes of our government functioning.
If you look around the world, many nations have a National Language due to the many languages spoken within their borders. For the operations of government - judiciary, military, MSM, transportation, business - having a single language is sensible.
Spanish and Portugal are used as National Languages in Central and South America due to the native languages being so prevalent.
It is also very economical to have a National Language rather than the government paying for interpreters or the printing demands of a tiny group of linguistic minorities.
This looks like yet something else for Trump to repeal in 50 days.
You’re right. Trump would have to make invalid all new regulations prior to.. (select date)... by EO.
Similarly, burning the rainbow flag is a hate crime and burning the US flag is constitutionally protected free speech.
It’s mind-blowing that it is the official policy of the government of the United States to favor foreigners over Americans at American businesses.
The intent is genocide. It can no longer be reasonably denied that this is so.
If the “Republican” Congress knows what’s good for it, it will.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.